Monster, Monster?
by CV3
Summary: A routine werewolf hunt goes fatally wrong for one brother, until they encounter an unexpected supernatural saviour.
1. Part One : Long time sleeping

All Joe had done was go outside for a smoke

It wasn't like he had to worry about the Big C after all, but he wished he didn't perpetuate it as a good thing to do among his co-workers so often, however. They didn't share his … unique, constitution. Truth be told it was a legitimate way to extricate himself from the noise, movement and general chaos of the busy city ER his unit worked out of, just to get outside for a few moments and see the stars. Not that he disliked his chosen profession of late - actually, he loved it. Even if it brought him perilously close to temptation, somewhere in him, he couldn't quite squash his natural inclination to care, to heal. This was the only way he had found to be able to do that in a way that didn't get him killed. He played it their way. He stayed below the radar. These days, he was just plain old Joe Phelps, a city medic with a drive to help people the only way he could. He blended in. his life depended on it.

He sloped against the solid cement block wall of the ER and knocked a cigarette loose. The flicker of the old tinbox zippo flame suddenly paled against the lights of an in-bound ambulance, and he lifted his head out of reflex, cigarette teetering between his teeth.

The bus pulled up to the emergency exit, and he saw the trauma nurse stick her head out of the automatic door in anticipation. The back door to the ambulance opened, but there was no rushed frenzy of activity, no medics screaming stats or trauma nurses and night staff doctors tripping over each other. And that could only mean one thing. Jackie Harris, another night duty regular, jumped out of the back and shook his head at the nurse. She turned and headed back into the ER, likely to send out an orderly with a gurney. DOA. No fuss. On with business as usual. Joe sighed and lit the cigarette.

"I really am sorry there wasn't more we could do," Jackie was saying. His deadpan manner of speech could come across to those who didn't know him well as apathetic, but Joe knew Jackie was just a good guy who had to keep it basic, or the job would eat him alive. He nodded to the patients in the back of the ambulance, and headed into the ER for the paperwork, rubbing at the back of his neck. It was Saturday, and a full moon - the crazies were out in force, and the ER had been run off their feet all night. One corpse in the back of an ambulance wasn't exactly high priority, except to get it out of there and get the unit back on the street, but Jackie looked like a man on the hunt for coffee, having just lost another patient after all, and the trauma nurse wasn't hopping on the bell with the gurney. For a while, everything seemed to flow around the ambulance, like life was carrying on despite the dead human in the back. Some nights, he didn't understand that. How accepting they were. They just acknowledged it, filed it, transported it, pushed it into the right box.

For some reason he couldn't quite place, Joe circled closer to the back of the ambulance, to peer cautiously inside.

In the back were two men. One, evidently dead. He could tell that abundantly from where he stood ten feet away. He was stretched out on his back on the gurney, still wearing leather boots and slashed blue jeans, but his shirt had been given the paramedics' treatment and cut from neck to hem to access his bare chest. And from there, it was very obvious as to the cause of death. The man's chest was opened up by something Joe could only guess at a machete. The cuts were savage, deep and gaping. But why four? Who the hell roamed the city streets with two machetes? He doubted anyone in his right mind would have stood still for four single serves. Still, one never knew in this town. Around him was evidence of the medics' failed attempts at saving his life - lines still hooked into veins, saline to combat the blood loss, morphine to ease him down. A blood-spattered oxygen mask and a mountain of bloodstained gauzing. Hell of a night.

Joe shifted his attention to the man sitting beside the gurney - awkwardly, with his size. He was sitting perfectly still, as if he couldn't quite believe what was there in front of him, but his blood-stained face was cut clean with tears, and his expression was familiar to Joe. He winced. He was about to turn back in, find the orderly and tell him to get a move on with the mess, the bus needed back out on the streets. Full moons, man. Blood would spill. He had turned, cigarette still in hand to do just that, when the still-living side of the pair in the ambulance gasped in a breath, his expression switching from numb shock to shattered devastation in a heartbeat. His breath stuttered in and out of him, and Joe hung back, wary of another casualty. If the guy was going to have a heart attack or go into shock or something …

"Oh God, Dean, I'm so sorry."

He slumped forward, clenching his hands together, addressing the corpse.

"Don't - Dean … please."

Joe tilted his head. The big guy looked mid-twenties, but suddenly he sounded very young. It was a child's innocent plea that Joe had heard plenty of times - kids seemed to think Mommy or Daddy was going to just wake up if they asked really nicely.

He gasped in another breath and held it - trying not to sob, though Joe could tell he was unaware of being watched. Interesting.

"Of all the ways to go, this can't be it man, it can't, not a routine gig like this. You'll never live this down, you know?"

The man raised his head and, to Joe's surprise, stared intently and imploringly at his companion's face.

"Please, Dean, don't do this, not to me. Not now. I should have loaded up faster, seen it coming - why'd you have to get in the way, you jerk? God Dean I'm so damn sorry, I can't -"

His face creased into a tight knot of pain, and he lowered his head a moment before inching closer to the dead man's side. Further to Joe's intrigue, he laid a hand against the man's cheek and shook it gently and uselessly.

"Wake up. Wake up."

Joe had seen it all before. Grieving loved ones always started at step one - denial, and he couldn't blame them. The alternative was incomprehensible to most people. That the body of the person they knew was right there, but it wasn't moving ever again, and the person they knew was gone for good. That's the way it usually worked.

But there was something off about this pair. There was something deeply unjustified in the young man's obvious pain, as he sat back on the narrow bench seat with another gasped sob and raked his hands through dark hair. Joe let his eyes wander over the body - young, maybe a few years older than the man at his side. Big, and built up like a soldier. Skin pale, eyes closed, his chest unmoving beneath the lengthy red ribbons of the gashes that had bled him out.

_Wrong_, something inside him whispered. _Something wrong._

Against his better judgement, he edged closer to the ambulance and the strange pair who occupied it. Life and death. He tilted his head at the body again. He wasn't long dead. It was still there. And this one was strong. Joe licked his lips, tasting blood and coal and ozone. He could do it. The power was suddenly there at the fore, crawling under his skin, whispering instinctual information.

But no, he shouldn't. That was not the way it was supposed to be. If he had learned anything, it was how amazingly dangerous this was even to think about it. Ridiculously, he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, as if expecting the iron blade at his back. He saw nothing, and shifted his eyes back to the pair in the ambulance. _No, _he told himself sternly. He was Joe Phelps now, just an ordinary medic, with no reason for anyone to go looking into him at all.

He was doing all he could do - he was still saving people, right? The only way they would let him and escape with his life? Hell, they even applauded what he did now. Times had changed - but they hadn't changed _that _much. If he did it - if he did it again, here and now, he was exposing himself completely to unimaginable risk. He was asking to put himself in the place of the dead thing on the gurney - and for more than just a few hours. For real, for ever. He remembered the kind eyes of his childhood, the dancing dark blue of the soul behind the flesh as his father took him up in his arms, the light of the sun shining cleanly through him if Joe looked just the right way. His father had taught him that there were things out there in the dark that could, and would, end him. Without thought, without pause, without regret or mercy. The only way to survive was to run from them, to hide from them. Joe knew he didn't have the strength to fight back. Fighting wasn't a part of what he was. The only fight he was capable of was the fight against death, to save the people they picked up in the ambulance. Not this. No, it was much too risky. There was no way he could do it again. There wasn't. He stared at the dead man a little longer, caught like a junkie in headlights. The living man of the pair snagged Joe's attention again by doubling over his knees with a low groan, wrapping one arm around his chest. Joe pursed his lips. It wasn't his business to go sticking his neck out - but he couldn't exactly just let the guy join his friend. Dropping dead in an ambulance outside a hospital from a heart attack right next to a corpse wasn't something he could exactly get away with letting happen. He took a drag on the cigarette and approached the open doors.

"Sir? Do you need help?"

It took the dark-haired man a moment to lift his head and focus on Joe. When he did, his expression was one of wounded disbelief, and the inflection was clear - it didn't matter anymore. What could possibly be worse than what had just happened and been left to cool in front of him?

Joe scratched at his neck, feeling absurd.

"Sir, you should come on inside, we can check you out. Wouldn't want you to go into shock or anything. The mortuary orderly will take care of him."

He gestured to the body on the gurney.

The dark haired man's reaction was swift, and shot sudden fear through an unsuspecting Joe. He went from boneless and wrecked, doubled up in pain at the dead man's side, to leaping out of the ambulance with speed belied by his size, to plant his formidable frame between Joe and the body.

"No one touches him, y'hear? Anyone touches him and I'll kill them. Got it?"

His face was suddenly set, jaw clenched, green eyes burning, his voice a hard growl. Joe had instinctually taken a step back, startled, and raised his hands - cigarette and all - in surrender.

"Okay. Calm down. Just …" he bit his lip, completely without a clue as to why he was pursuing a guy obviously at the end of his rope who looked like he could (and would, if he didn't back up smart like) tear Joe apart with his bare hands. "At least just let me check you out here, then?"

The man gave a snort of disgust and turned his back on Joe, to lean his hands on the floor of the ambulance. The moment his eyes settled back on the body, however, Joe saw the sudden strength supplied by the perceived threat bleed out of him just as surely as his companion's blood had him. It left them both dead. He lowered his head.

Joe licked his lips again. The smell of coal and ozone and blood joined the taste, and the power was electrifying his veins, sizzling his skin. It was now or never. It was almost too late. What the hell was he thinking? He flexed his hands, trying to work off the surge, trying to reign in his instincts. God, he hadn't felt it this strongly in many, many years. Almost longer than he could remember. It was almost unstoppable, irresistible, overwhelming, unendurable. Memory seared the image against his retinas like flash photography - a man, dressed in the dun-coloured leather of a frontiersman, his face pale and frightened. The blood that stood out starkly against his white skin, the terror in his eyes. Joe remembered the power that had flowed through him then, like oxygen infiltrating his every cell. Only now it was worse. _Do it! _Railed a voice in his head. _Do it now, before it's too late! Do it!_

He swallowed, clenched his eyes shut and took the plunge. This was a bad idea, his rational mind argued. Bad, _suicidally_ bad idea. He could fight it. He could step back, leave this man to his grief and walk away. He could. He couldn't.

Joe stamped out the cigarette and crawled into the ambulance. The dark-haired man's head snapped up, his face soaked in tears, but he made no movement to kill Joe, which was a plus. His eyes travelled over the smaller man, and Joe prayed he couldn't see the brightness beginning to shimmer beneath his skin, lighting his eyes, or perceive the way he knew his form was becoming just ever so slightly translucent.

He looked down at the body. Oh, he could see it alright. It wasn't too late. But here? He checked his watch - ten minutes until the end of shift. His partner was still busy with a DNR - the one thing in medicine she loathed. Kit couldn't bear to stand by while people died, by their own wishes or not. She'd be arguing with the surgeon for hours. No one had filed paperwork on this guy - he doubted the trauma nurse had bothered, especially if no orderly had materialized, and Jackie wasn't going anywhere near this job again until he was caffeinated. Joe looked back at the dark-haired man, who was watching him with an uncomprehending frown.

"Hey … I might be able to help," he said slowly.

Christ, what was he doing? He had started to sweat. Bad idea. As if contemplating doing this again wasn't bad enough, he was asking permission now? Pointing the spotlight straight at himself? Making sure this guy didn't just chalk this up to a freak accident, a miracle of God, whatever made sense to him enough to be able to accept and believe it? He could at least make a performance out of it, he thought as he swiped sweat off his brow. Grab the paddles, yell CLEAR and zap the corpse, channelling the real surge only he could generate at the same time, dragging the stillness back? Make it believable and not at all creepy?

"What?" the dark-haired man's voice was a broken husk, but the question was clear.

Joe squinted his eyes shut. No. if he was going to do this, he needed some consent at least, some permission, from someone to tell him this was okay, it's what they wanted. That he could go with his instincts, just this once. As if that validated him. He focused on the dark-haired man.

"I might be able to help. It might not be too late. But - do you want this?"

"What do you mean?" came the reply, with far more informed consent than he was ready for. Something started screaming alarm bells in the back of Joe's head, but it was too late now.

"Do you want him to wake up?"

For a moment, a heartbeat, the dark-haired man didn't breathe, and neither did Joe. Then resignation, pain, sorrow, guilt, love, desperation, abandon, and an awful relieved surrender crashed over his expression.

"Yes," he whispered.

Joe sucked in his breath. There was no more denying. He laid his hands on the cold chest and simply was what he was. The surge was there, the power at his fingertips, flooding through his fibres like floodwater, a dam that was never meant to be held breaking loose at long last, and he knew a moment of pure unadulterated ecstasy, and everything was sublimely right with him, with the dark-haired man, with the corpse, with the universe. He felt his form waver, sensed the stuffed, shunted stillness that had settled with the cold over the dead man. He drew in, like breath, but much, much deeper. He felt it shift, felt his light awaken in the dead man, connecting the fuses, felt the power crash out from his form to electrify the man beneath his hands, felt the burden of the exchange that crashed into him in return. Always an exchange. The weight. The weight he knew would drag him down too, for a time. Just as his power would awaken the dead man again, as his dark-haired companion had wished.

Beneath his hands, the corpse gasped in a desperate breath, his body again ticking over like a clockwork toy, the biological engine turning over, the stillness lifted. Joe felt his shell harden, and knew he didn't have much time.

The dark-haired man had given a shocked yelp when his companion breathed again, his hands desperately travelling over the other, calling his name. The former dead man curled forward in pain - the slashes weren't Joe's area of expertise. He raised eyes he knew were solidifying into white blindness to catch on the dark-haired man's shocked face.

"Take him inside. Tell them you shocked him and he came to, but get those lacerations sutured."

He slid from the ambulance, seeking darkness. There wasn't much time. His body was stiffening, his mind fogging, his eyesight receding. His chest ached with the man's last injury. He stumbled into the parking lot, deaf to the dark-haired man's calls to stop. He knew he wouldn't leave the other man just to chase Joe, not now. Joe was only his second priority.

Joe ran. Or, as close to it as he could manage. He tried to think, but the synapses in his brain were suffocating under the dead man's stillness - he had to get somewhere. Low. Hidden. Somewhere where no one would find a body or wouldn't care if they did. Somewhere close - he couldn't hold on much longer. His power was given, for a time, and it left nothing for himself, nothing to stand up against the cold inertia of the dead man's absence. There was a storm water catchment not too far - he could make it. Curl up in the pipes, and wait. He would awaken again, in time.

He stumbled on, half-blinded, his form stiffening and solidifying with terrifying speed. He had to make it.

The dark mouth of the storm water pipe opened up before him, and he would have laughed if he could still breathe. No, breath wasn't an option right now. He was vaguely aware that he was bleeding though his flight - his hands, knees, elbows. It didn't matter, not against what was coming. And after it, when he _was_ again, that would be a memory and nothing more. Instinctually fighting the dying of his body on some base animal instinct, Joe crawled into the storm water drain, and let the darkness close in on him.


	2. Part Two : Reawakening

It opened its eyes.

For a moment, it had forgotten what they were, or how to open them, or why.

It felt … tiredness. And confusion. There had been darkness. There had been a risk, a knife in the dark, kind eyes it remembered from long ago. Some sense of urgency, a need, the rising of the flood. Then pain, a desperate need to flee. Then darkness. And genesis. What was all this?

It became aware of its form - something was restricting it. Binding. Dampening. The stillness that was death? No, more visceral. More real. More immediate. It twisted - it was tied up.

Recognition hit it like a second flood and it thrashed and writhed - the night shift on the ambulance, the DOA, the dark-haired man and his grief, rattling against it like pebbles on tin, wrong like a dislocated joint, unjust like an innocent man jailed for life. The rising of the power within as it hadn't done in years - too many to count - the impulse that seemed almost independent of its will. Reaching out to the cold body on the gurney - _do you want him to wake up?_

Joe gasped in a shocked breath and hit his head - hard - against something cold and sharp. Storm water drain? No. Transparent. A car window. His body was still his own, more or less the same as before. He twisted - ropes. He was tied up. Oh God.

"Hey!" Barked a voice to his left, and Joe flinched back against something softer, but no less trapping him for that. "Stop squirming."

Joe heard a keening noise and realized it was him - he was desperately pushing himself back against the seat of the car, against the door, as far away as he could get from the two men who sat in the front seats. Escape - he had to escape. He had to get out of here. Now.

The same voice cursed something unintelligible and the world rocked beneath him - the car pulling over.

This was not happening. His worst nightmare, his one and only fear, was coming to life all around him and he was more terrified than he had been in such a long time. This was very, very bad.

The car crunched to a halt and Joe flung himself against the door, the need to escape permeating his every cell. He remembered - remembered more than he ever wanted to remember, more than he could deal with remembering. He knew that what he had done - _God, what the hell had he been thinking? _- could result in an exchange, of sorts, that went deeper than just life and death. That was the primal function of the thing sure, but other things mixed up in all that tended to stick. Sometimes it was impressions, images, feelings. Sometimes memories, sounds. Sometimes just information that spilled over. All these things were confusing at first, but faded with time. This time, those things set everything inside Joe on fire with terror, and he knew his long life was about to come to a swift and brutal end. Like all the casualties he worked over at the ER, and felt so removed from their pattern of perpetual death. Looks like he wasn't so different, after all. He knew the sleek black Chevy, knew the sound of Led Zeppelin crackling through the speakers and knew what that meant. He knew the smell of gunpowder and leather, knew the voices of the men in the front seats not just as a distraught family member or friend and a silent corpse. He saw the flash of heat and light, heard a blonde woman screaming, heard the order beating against the inside of his own head like a bell - _Watch out for Sammy. Take care of your little brother. _He saw the dark visage of the man that began it, the personification of the very thing that sent terror cascading into his blood, scrambling his brains. Joe was hyperventilating, spots peppering his vision. He saw the feral blue eyes of the thing in the darkness, felt the slashing claws as if they had torn through his own flesh. Felt sorrow, helplessness, heard the echo of the man's final thought - _Sorry, Sammy. _Felt a death that wasn't his.

"Hey, calm down!" Barked the same voice, hands taking hold of his bound form, and white terror seized Joe. He screamed - and it wasn't the scream of a human.

"Son of a -" The man in front of him - the one that was the corpse - grasped his head at the sound.

"Hey, hey, hey," insisted another voice quickly - that of the dark-haired man. His face swam into Joe's vision, and he looked entirely different. His face was still pale, but his green eyes were clear and sharp, his expression - concerned. Joe's mind was crumbling. He had to get away.

"Hey stop, its okay, we're not going to hurt you, we just want to talk okay? Calm down."

Joe gave a trapped animal's cry and pressed himself into a small ball against the locked door, a door he was unable to unlock bound as he was with his hands behind his back. It was fruitless anyway, he knew that now. He pushed himself as far away as he was able from the dark-haired man and stilled in the corner, panting. He awaited the knife.

"Okay. It's okay," the dark-haired man - Sammy - was saying. His hands were held out toward Joe, who flinched away before he registered that neither man held a weapon.

"We just want to understand. We're not going to hurt you."

The man who had been dead … Dean? Stood behind Sammy with his arms crossed, his regard of Joe hard, but not unkind. None of this was making sense. Why was he still alive?

"Okay. I'm Sam Winchester, that's my brother Dean. You are?"

Joe stared back at the pair with frightened eyes and said nothing.

Sam Winchester sighed. "Look. We just want to know what happened, okay? That's it. We just want to understand."

Terrified, Joe kept very still and silent. Sam looked up at Dean, and something seemed to pass between them.

"You helped us, right? Why would you help us?"

"Yeah and what price did you put on my head," Dean snarled, sending Joe crawling backwards against the window, looking to press himself through a crack in the steel and glass that wasn't there.

"Dean," Sam cautioned.

"No, Sammy, since when do supernatural things just bring people back from the dead without a price tag? I'm supposed to believe this thing brought me back just out of the goodness of its heart?"

"We don't know anything yet," Sam retorted, while panic and terror clawed at Joe. "You're fine, and I'm fine, and this guy's fine. There's nothing wrong with this situation yet."

"Uh huh," Dean returned, sarcasm and disbelief evident.

Sam turned back to Joe.

"Look. Please. I promise if you just tell us what happened, we'll let you go. We don't want to hurt you."

"Hunters," Joe whispered, eyes flickering between the pair.

"How'd you know that?" Sam asked. His tone implied nothing but curiosity, his expression a question mark. He crouched at the open door to the Impala, one arm resting on his knee. Neither he nor Dean had made any move against Joe, who was getting more and more confused by the minute.

He checked his eyes up to stare at Dean, who raised his brows in question.

"I - I saw it. Sometimes, things spill over. I saw."

"You saw," Dean accused, cut short by Sam as Joe cringed.

Sam fixed his eyes back on Joe, and some of the sadness he had first seen written all over his face leeched back into his expression.

"Dean was dead, right? That werewolf clawed him up."

After a moment, Joe nodded. Sam returned the gesture.

"And you - you brought him back, right?"

Another nod.

"Why? Just tell me why."

Joe glanced up at Dean, who stayed silent, scowling.

"I just - I don't control it, really. I haven't felt it that strongly in years. Decades. I had to."

"What do you mean?" Sam questioned.

"It's -" Joe licked his lips. "It's what I am. I just -I've learned not to be that. To hide. To survive. I'm normal, I don't hurt anybody, I don't do anything a human couldn't do. I'm a medic, that's it. But you -"

He glanced up at Dean fearfully.

"I couldn't help it. I saw you, the both of you, and the power inside just sparked. I knew what I had to do. I had to take the death from you, to reawaken you. I don't know why - it went against every instinct I got. I knew something like this would happen, hunters would come for me if I did it, but I couldn't help it, I couldn't resist it. You had to be bought back, back to Sammy and I saw it and everything just got out of control -"

Now he had started talking, the words were spilling out and he couldn't make himself shut up.

"Wow wow wow, just hold on a damn second here," Dean stemmed the flow of Joe's words. "What exactly are you getting out of all this? When we found you we thought you were dead. Doesn't exactly stack up to a door prize, pal."

"What?" Joe whispered.

"I mean what the hell is your endgame? You putting a price on souls, or something worse? What did Sam give you?"

"Dean -"

"Sam."

"I don't understand," Joe replied helplessly. Hunters were monsters - he had no idea what they were talking about.

"He's not a demon, Dean. We tested him, remember?"

"Yeah well this thing is after something."

"I couldn't help it," insisted Joe miserably.

"And what does that mean exactly?" Dean demanded.

"I just - it's just what I am. Certain people - I just can't stop myself. I had to help you, even though I knew it would probably get me killed, and not just for a few hours. For good. So if you're going to kill me …"

He couldn't quite bring himself to utter the challenge, knowing that it would be met. They were hunters. He was already dead.

Sam sat back on his haunches, his expression genuinely confused.

"Why are you so certain we want to kill you?"

"You're hunters," Joe replied, just as confused.

"You say you haven't put Dean or me into any kind of deal, that this is just a - a natural part of whatever you are, right? There's been no death transference, no magic, no sacrifice? Well, apart from your own. You've done nothing wrong. You _saved _Dean. Why would we want to kill you?"

Joe gaped at Sam. "I'm not human," he said, as if stating the obvious. "I never have been, never will be. Hunters call me a supernatural creature, a monster, a freak. Hunters will always be coming for me, if I slipped up, showed myself. The only way I've survived is by running from them, keeping quiet, keeping below their radar. That's the way things are."

Sam glanced up at Dean, whose expression was finally starting to thaw.

"No," Sam replied, his voice soft with sadness Joe didn't understand. "That may be some hunters, but not all hunters. Dean and me - our dad taught us to hunt evil. You're not hurting people, you're not evil. From what we've seen so far, you help people. Like we do."

"Yeah well, lets not jump the gun here," Dean interrupted, but his voice was soft to match Sam's.

"You may not be a demon, but really we have no idea what you are, or what you want. All we got's your word. If you're telling the truth - come with us. Just a few tests to run, nothing that's going to hurt you. We just - we just want to be sure. That's all."

Joe cringed against the door, fear again lighting his eyes.

Sam sighed in frustration. "I get it okay, you're afraid of us." He tilted his head. "Why _are _you afraid of us?"

Joe swallowed. This was bizarre. Here he was, having a cordial conversation with a pair of hunters, tied up in the back of a Chevy.

"My - my father," he said, still unable to believe this was happening. "My father was - whatever it is I am. I never knew what we were, what others called us. We lived in a little cabin on the prairie lands. Long ago. My father was there - we weren't human, we didn't fit in with the human tribes. They would come and go, uh, I suppose they moved with the seasons back then. My father would heal the sick, I'd stay with him and wait until he came back from it. They came to him and he'd - he'd do what I did to Dean. Take on the burden of their illnesses. But never death. Not until one day, there was some invasion. I don't remember which, it was too long ago. But men came for the people of the prairie, killed a lot of them. My father saw the whole thing and he couldn't just let it go, not when he had the power in him to take it back. They were good people, they didn't deserve to be massacred like they were. The invaders found out what had happened - I don't know how, maybe rumours, maybe one of the tribesmen told them. There was a man … he came for my father. Said he was a hunter, a man who hunted creatures like us, killed us because we weren't human. He had an iron blade. We're not made to be warriors or fighters, we're not strong. We heal, not hurt, and with the way we can be sort of insubstantial, we cant fight back. Not against humans, and definitely not against hunters. There was nothing either of us could do, and he -"

Joe shook his head. Sam nodded. He stood up, facing his brother. Joe could hear the carry of his soft voice.

"It makes sense, we've seen it before Dean. Some hunters - they don't discriminate the way we do. I mean think about Gordon. Or that guy Kubrick who came after me. Think about how a thing like this guy would look to a hunter like that. They probably suspected exactly what you do - that somehow these things were reaping the benefits, trapping souls or stealing children, or worse. But maybe they aren't. Maybe he's telling the truth. After everything you and me have seen, you know there's good out there as well as all the evil. Maybe this guy is just a small part of that, something we ran into right on time."

"Oh by a freakin' coincidence just when I so happen to get clawed up? Come on, Sam."

"Weirder things have happened, Dean."

Joe watched as Dean's mouth ticked up into something that may have passed for a smile.

"Okay, so we take him to Bobby's, we poke and prod until something sticks. I'm not risking your life on this thing's word."

"My life? It's your life he saved, Dean. And what are you going to do? He already told us he's a supernatural creature with a weakness for iron - same as a whole bunch of supernatural creatures. doesn't mean the thing's evil. Other than that, we have no way of knowing what else might be at play here."

"Sam -"

"And what if he's telling the truth? You gonna lock him in Bobby's panic room forever and just wait to see if one of us drops dead? What, start waterboarding an innocent man?"

"Man?"

"Whatever."

Dean sighed and his eyes slipped past Sam to regard Joe critically. Joe's heart was still hammering - a lifetime of fear didn't just evaporate because some hunter decided to play nice. If he'd have known these two were hunters, he'd have run as fast as he could in the other direction, whether they lit his fuse or not … right?

"If we do that we're no better than the hunters who killed his dad for saving his people back in the day," Sam said, voice soft. "Or Creedy and Kubrick. You going to tell me they were right to hunt me down too, because of the things I can do?"

"This is different, Sam."

"No it's not!"

"Please," Joe interrupted, much to everyone's surprise. "I don't want to cause any harm, I swear. I just … I just want to go home and watch TV and forget I ever met you."

Dean gave a grudging laugh at that. He seemed to consider for a moment, then shot Joe's heart into his mouth by pulling a wickedly curved knife from his belt. Joe broke out in a cold sweat. Oh God, this was it. Sam inched out of the doorway, eyes on Dean warily.

"Tell you what," Dean said, taking Sam's crouched position at the door of the Impala. "Show of good faith. I cut the ropes, and you repay me by not running away. Try it, and I _will _kill you. You come with us to see a friend of ours like I said. We figure out what's going on here. If you're telling the truth, you walk out of there and never see us again. If I find out you got Sam in some contract for my life, you ain't walking anywhere ever again. Deal?"

Joe cringed, and nodded. It was all he could do. Dean came within a foot of him with the knife - and he passed out in terror.

A week later, two hunters and a supernatural creature stood outside the ER where the latter worked.

Sam extended a hand, and Joe shook it.

"Thanks again, Joe."

"Sure. I won't repeat the same mistake twice."

Both Winchesters smiled at that, both smiles reaching their identical green eyes.

"Laying low might not be a bad idea," Dean volunteered. "But you know that. Some hunters, they just don't see the whole picture. Some of them I wouldn't trust with a dog. I uh … I wish I didn't have to tell you that. Tell you not to do what you do. It shouldn't be like that."

"But we don't want to see you get killed for it," Sam amended.

Joe nodded. "Thanks, guys. You um … you went a long way to changing how I see hunters. But you're right, and it's too late. I can't trust them not to kill me for failing to be just like them. So, be strangers, yeah?"

Again, both hunters nodded sadly, and moved to turn away.

"Hey you - you take care of yourselves, okay?" Joe called after them. "There was a reason you two lit the fuse. In decades as a medic and decades before that, it's only happened a few times, never that strong. I _had _to save you. I didn't have a choice. There's got to be a reason for that. Keep an eye open."

"Well that sounds vaguely ominous," Dean grumbled as Joe raised a hand in farewell.

"But he's right," Sam replied, hands laced on the waxed roof of the impala. "We screw the natural order, Dean. And there's got to be a reason out there, somewhere on down the road."

Without a word, Dean ducked into the drivers' seat and gunned the engine.

The end.


End file.
